Starship: the most spectacular videos of Elon Musk’s rocket in space

SpaceX carried out this Thursday, from Boca Chica (Texas), the third test flight of the Starship – the largest and most powerful ship in the world trying to reach space – after two failed attempts that ended in explosions.

The company confirmed “loss” of the ship shortly after it re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and before it reached the waters of the Indian Ocean, however the test was described as “huge success” during the live broadcast.

After the successful takeoff, which occurred around 8:25 am local time from a Starbase platform, the base of SpaceXboth stages of the rocket separated successfully, although the first, called Super Heavy, did not successfully complete its return to earth.

He Spaceship It successfully continued the planned journey of almost one orbit around the planet, during which it traveled at an altitude of around 160 kilometers and at a speed of over 26,000 km/h.

During more than an hour of flight, significantly longer than in previous tests, Starship was able to open and close the ship’s hatches and transfer fuel from one tank to another, part of the trial scheduled for today.

The ship had time as it descended and returned Earth’s atmosphere to broadcast some impressive images of the planet live, after which, as expected, communication stopped.

Moments later, mission controllers confirmed they had “lost” the ship during its descent at more than 15,000 miles per hour.

Despite The spaceship did not survive the harsh conditions During its return the test achieved many of its objectives. SpaceX owner Elon Musk has indicated that further tests are planned for this year.

The idea with these tests is to prepare US soil to return to the Moonpredictably in 2026, and accelerate the path towards Mars.

SpaceX, which classified its two previous launches as learning despite the setbacks, needed approval from the government’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the new attempt this Thursday.

The FAA noted that SpaceX “met all safety, environmental, policy, and financial responsibility requirements.”

Spaceship background in space

Last April, the two phases of The spacecraft failed to separate and mission controllers activated an emergency system that intentionally detonated the rocket about four minutes after launch.

The second test, also ended with a burstHowever, it was more successful, as both phases were separated and SpaceX “achieved a number of important milestones and provided valuable data to continue rapidly developing Starship,” the company explained.

A few minutes before launchMusk made a surprise appearance in Boca Chica to invite the audience present and those who followed the online broadcast to make donations through a cryptocurrency investment program to make space travel “accessible to all” in the future.

He stressed that this is an initiative to “democratize“space exploration and offered to double the investment made in bitcoin to those who participate in said donation program.